


Retribution

by prairiegrantairie



Category: BBC les mis, Les Misérables (TV 2018), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Horror, ghostly murder, haunted Catherine AU, haunted doll - Freeform, horrible off-page vengeance, implied toothy violence, this is all Davies' fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-10 23:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiegrantairie/pseuds/prairiegrantairie
Summary: My response to Davies making Catherine's hair canonically come from Fantine.After being left behind by Cosette, Catherine is free to exact revenge on her child's ruinous father.Crossposted from Tumblr.





	Retribution

**Author's Note:**

> (I straight-up copied the tags from [Clickety-Clackety](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421416) by [laughingmistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingmistress))

“I told you when I moved in to this wretched hovel I wanted a flat where I wouldn’t have to hear mewling brats!”

“I’m sorry, M. Tholomyès.” The landlady ducked her head, apparently demurring but in fact to conceal the way she pressed her lips together with disdain. “There are no children living in this house. None of the lodgers have any.”

He shot her a furious look. “Then why, Madame, am I woken, night after night, by the sound of children’s laughter?”

“I’m not certain, M. Tholomyès. Perhaps if you slept with your window shut?”

“‘Window shut.’ Useless woman!” He turned and walked away, then fired back over his shoulder, “If this continues I’ll leave, and damned if I’ll give notice!”

“Yes, M. Tholomyès.”

He stalked to his room and slammed the door. He hadn’t slept well the night before—damned to what she said, a child had kept him awake half the night!—and he’d spent most of the day drinking to make up for it, and now he had the devil’s own head.

He clumsily built up the fire for the night, cursing as he dropped chunks of burnt wood on the floor and scattered ash on his immaculate boots.

He undressed and put on his nightgown, then extinguished all but the night candle.

Sneering, he shut the window hard enough to make the glass rattle in its frame.

He was asleep almost from the moment his head hit the pillow.

Hours later, after full dark, well after midnight: the sound of a child’s laughter.

Tholomyès sat up with a jolt, awake and with his eyes open before he registered what had woken him.

There it was again. Unmistakable.

He snarled and threw back his blanket. He’d rouse the damn woman from her bed and _make_ her listen!

Before he could reach the door, he noticed that the window was open, and much wider than he usually left it on hot nights.

Unnerved, he shut it and fastened the latch for good measure—unwittingly shutting his death in with him.

Laughter again, and the sound of small footsteps.

“Alright, you! Come out this moment or I’ll give you a beating you won’t soon forget, then I’ll deliver you to your mama and papa for another!”

No answer. No one appeared.

Silence.

Tholomyès had just decided to return to bed, that it must have been some trick of sound making it seem as though the child was in his room and it must have passed on, when he heard it again. Laughter from the corner farthest from the fire.

The fire went out, followed quickly by the night candle.

Tholomyès took up the poker, brandishing it unsteadily in front of him, looking from side to side in the dim moonlight through his thin curtain.

A small, dark figure coming toward him, its movement somehow strange.

His breath quickened with terror, but he swung the poker. “You had your chance to leave on your own. Now I’ll _make_ you.”

The child stepped into a patch of moonlight, almost as though presenting itself to him, making certain he saw it, and Tholomyès saw it wasn’t a child at all, but a large doll.

He scrambled, back away from the thing, dropping the poker in his terror. His legs hit the bed and he fell onto it, the doll steadily approaching.

There was something almost familiar about its hair.

The doll’s charming little red painted mouth opened.

“Dear god!” Tholomyès screamed, feeling his bladder let go.

The doll had _teeth_.

And there was something familiar about those as well.

 

***  
  


The first morning Madame Berger could not rouse M. Tholomyès for breakfast was hardly cause for concern. The lout was often out drinking past dawn, if he returned to his bed at all, but that was hardly her concern. His rent was paid through the week, and with that in hand his business was his own, and no matter to her if he didn’t want to sleep in the bed he paid for.

When the money ran out and he didn’t rouse to any of her knocks or calls through the door throughout the day as she did her work, she still wasn’t overly concerned. He had threatened to leave, after all.

She unlocked the door using her key, but the door wouldn’t budge. She threw her not insubstantial weight against it, frowning. Had he left through the window and placed a piece of furniture against the door to trouble her even after he left, the spiteful creature?

Finally, the sound of something shifting within and Madame Berger was able to push the door enough for her to enter the room. It was cold; the fire had gone out. She lit a candle so she could see what had been blocking the door; it seemed too low and uneven to match any of the furniture she knew the room contained.

She gasped, one hand over her mouth, the other pressed to her breast. Oh, this was far from the first lodger she had discovered dead in her rooms, she’d been in this business too long for that, but she’d never seen one in this condition!

His skin was waxy and pale, his eyes enormous and transfixed, his mouth open in a silent scream.

He looked as though he’d been frightened to death, that was what had startled her.

Gooseflesh rising on her forearms, Madame Berger quickly searched the small room but could find nothing that might have invoked such fear. A weak heart, more than likely, combined with strong drink.

He’d pissed himself before he went, which was to be expected and at least it was _only_ piss. She’d need to purchase a new mattress before she could let the room again—some in her profession would simply flip the mattress and have lodgers make do, but she took pride in her house, and the money she found in his pockets more than covered the cost. She knew of no one to notify of his death, and suspected he wouldn’t be much missed.

The furniture was all hers, of course, but she could sell his foppish clothing and expensive toiletries. She’d make enough to cover the lost time without a lodger, plus a little extra on the side, she thought. She’d done this enough times to have a good eye for objects’ value.

As she kicked past the body on her way out to send a messenger to her brother to help with the corpse and the soiled mattress, her candlelight caught something.

Clutched in M. Tholomyès’ hand was a lock of long, golden hair.

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, you can find me on [Amazon,](https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B00DX6YGW6) where I mostly write about zombies and ghosts and men loving each other. (And loving ghosts. And zombies).


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